


Taking In A Stray

by orphan_account



Series: Halloween 2018 [2]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: M/M, Meet-Cute, Slow Burn, The Sickfic Nobody Asked For, for some reason, kind of, reads like an adam sandler level romcom
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-10-31
Updated: 2018-10-31
Packaged: 2019-08-11 09:46:10
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,402
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16473209
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: They're both actingentirelyout of pity.





	Taking In A Stray

Gabriel doesn’t have the time to register the tingling sensation in the center of his being for what it truly is before it spreads to the rest of him and he’s being teleported, vessel and all, into a teenager in Minnesota's ripe smelling bedroom.

He’s immediately annoyed, and not solely because of the devastating change in location from swimsuit models enthusiastically volunteering for belly shots on the beach of Tel Aviv, to a hockey poster covered wasteland with an almost visibly sticky sheen across the whole of it. No, there’s the slightly more pressing matter of the fact that his strength has just been absolutely fucking wrecked. Rekt, if you’re nasty.

“Oh, thank fuck,” Says the voice with an owner entirely too young and stupid to have access to a summoning ritual that hasn’t been used in nearly an entire millennium, and for good reason.

Way back when Gabriel was going through his attention- seeking almighty god phase, the somewhat sizable following he’d accumulated gifted him with not only willing, slutty sacrifices on the  _ daily _ , but also a free soul or two per summoning. A very  _ necessary _ soul, since ancient magic’s flare for the dramatic is rivaled only by its damn near comedically destructive streak.

He stumbles like a wine mom after book club, whipping his head around to spot the gangly bundle of inconvenience he’s been afflicted with. The kid in question looks to be almost entirely unphased by the phenomena of an archangel materializing out of nothing and maintaining a wobbly stance on his orange soda stained carpet.

“How do you know how to do that?” Gabriel’s mood has escalated from irritated to full on  _ heated _ at this point, but he’s too unsettlingly winded to put that heat to good use in his tone.

The teen doesn’t bother to even stand from the cornchip patterned bedspread he’s sat upon, his legs folded with a half eaten hot pocket on one thigh and a thick ass, dusty book balancing on the other.

“I’ll keep this short,” He gets out around a yawn, of which Gabriel is somehow weakened enough to be susceptible to the contagiousness of, “I have a problem. I’ve had three unsuccessful attempts at help from three different witches, all at different points on the morality spectrum. I’ve sold my soul to a demon. Who claimed I was so much of a lost cause, that she _refunded_ _me._ You’re one of my last hopes.”

Gabriel blinks, unimpressed and tired and debating whether or not murder would really be worth the effort it would take in the state he’s in, “How much higher do you think the chain of command goes, champ?”

The kid blinks back, slow and sure, “I will find god himself.”

Gabriel huffs at that, eyes rolling extra hard so that there’s no chance of the action being missed, “And I wish you just the best of luck with that.” 

He gives up the ideal of a peaceful snooze on the sand he’d been thriving on only moments prior, knowing that he needs somewhere secluded to recharge if he doesn’t wanna be snuffed out by whatever big bad could be waiting for this precise moment to strike. He envisions the innards of the cabin on his isolated island in Sweden that he’s claimed for situations such as these, and snaps his fingers.

The teen takes an unusually noisy bite of his hot pocket.

Gabriel snaps his fingers again. And again. And again and again until he hits that frantic point with the motion that starts giving off ‘unequivocally jazzed by some artsy hipster’s slam poetry’ vibes.

“Shit,” He snaps, arms slamming down to his sides and fingers flexing with what has now become legitimate anger, “Well, this is- Shit. Just-“ He exhales heavily through his nose, mouth tightening into a thin, displeased line.

“My problem is,” The unconcerned kid mumbles around a mouthful of pastry and cheese, “I start university next month. And. I’m a virgin.”

Whatever snippet of intrigue Gabriel might have had is promptly hurled into the overflowing garbage can in the corner of the room. He genuinely doubts that he’d be able to care about this with a proverbial gun to his skull, never mind without. He says as much, only with more cursing and less finesse because  _ wow _ , he’s really trapped in Minne-fuckin-sota, isn’t he? 

He rubs at his eyes with the heels of his hands and proceeds to get as close to pouting as he’s been in a while. His eyes peel open to appraise the incredibly sus book atop the teen, who is currently getting into all of the gritty details of his dilemma. Gabriel actively tunes out the wildly uninteresting and self- pitying tale and swipes up the poorly bound true offender of this fiasco.

A spark of fear ends the feud that petulance and vexation had previously been having for the top spot on his list of emotional priorities. The ghost sensation of a pit in his stomach after all of the time he’s spent firing to successfully avoid the feeling is enough of an unwelcome novelty to nearly knock him flat on his ass.

Okay. Alright. He looks over to the questionably stained curtains covering the window and then back to the deader than dead lettering covering the pages in his grasp. Cool.

The kid’s about midway into the climax of his tragic sexual backstory, pointedly  _ not _ the climax, actually, when Gabriel hits somewhat of a breaking point, lunges at him like a goddamn Fencin’ Benson, and smacks the snack right out from betwixt his greasy little fingers. It hits the wall with a wet slap and sticks to it with a complete disregard for proper hot pocket physics.

He’s almost certain that his intended intimidation has been entirely lost after that, but that aforementioned pit moves him to push on as if it hasn’t been, “Where did you get this?” 

Gabriel raids the punk’s kitchen pantry, snagging the few boxes full of hostess brand cakes on his way out to the garage. The slow reveal of a motherfucking minivan waiting for him is utterly heartbreaking, but these are desperate times. Desperate enough that Gabriel finds himself having to recount how to manually hot wire a car, power levels still at too stressful a low to be any help at all. It’s difficult to multitask his way through the dozens of wires and a Twinkie, but he eventually manages, peeling away from the small suburban home with the only form of trouble being a faint cry of shock and horror from the irksome teen’s bedroom window.

Road trips are not exactly something he finds enjoyable. To any capacity, really. It’s a massive time vampire to begin with, especially in comparison to the trusty snap and go, but then you factor in how quickly you run out of snacks and new music and not to mention the fact that cars are never, ever  _ comfortable _ \- It’s a shit show, and a boring one at that, but he optimistically attempts to tell himself that Funkley, Minnesota’s name alone is worth the headache. And he’s confident enough in his ability to go without entertainment for at least as long as it takes to get to the other side of this miserable state. Piece of cake. 

Gabriel punctuates the thought with the popping open of a Snowball to mark the start of his adventure.

He makes it an impressive eight miles before he purposely crashes the car. In his defense, his intention is to steal the Corvette cruising tauntingly in front of him after ramming into it. Plans change when the back end of the convertible crumples like paper in the face of the mom van’s unleashed true potential. He immediately grows somewhat attached to the absolute unit of a vehicle and continues  to drive on, leaving behind him a livid middle aged man and the wreckage of a puny sports car.

A minute or two later the road is distractingly long and empty ahead of him. Looking for a quick fix for boredom that's a few extremes below property damage, he switches on the radio. His mood plummets to what must be rock bottom as static hisses violently at him no matter which way he turns each and every old fashioned knob at his disposal. The broken disappointment of a device is flipped back off with a single vicious motion.

What the fuck is he supposed to do now? Just  _ sit _ ? He’d rather die. Maybe he’d find a hitchhiker. Fall in love with a hitchhiker. Kill a hitchhiker. If he was lucky enough for whatever deity of fortune was currently holding the reins to throw him that one bone on his journey, his cup would runneth over with the opportunity for varied shenanigans.

His posture slouches grumpily as he continues on for miles and miles without a single bone thrown. He briefly considers turning back and kidnapping the Corvette owner, but then a demanding ray of sunlight is piercing through the trunk window to shine on the dashboard. Directly on a CD player.

He jolts upright, haphazardly taking both hands off of the wheel to put maximum effort into getting this blessed thing going as soon as possible. The actual port seems to be literally  _ welded _ shut, which is initially such a completely agonizing blow that it nearly shoves him into a literal depression, but then he chances the play button.

Asia blares clearly and beautifully through the low quality car speakers, surrounding Gabriel in the most victorious rendition of Heat Of The Moment he’s ever heard. He sinks contentedly into the faux leather seat and raises the volume of the total bop as high as it will go. 

Finally. A break.

He’s aggressively pulling into a Gas-N-Sip who knows how long later, volume knob chilling uselessly on the floor mat and every button aside from ‘play’ jammed as shit.

A curse.

The van whips around with a screech and a trail of tire tread left in its wake as he chaotically parallel parks next to a gas pump. Not even the savage tearing apart of the wires keeping the car running and, more importantly, the music playing improves the deeply dismal low he’s descended to.

Hopping out of the hell hole, he’s not  _ exactly _ sure how he’s going to get his hands on the cash necessary to fill up the sputtering tank, but he’s almost positive that it will involve crime. That prediction appears to be coming to fruition as he spots a spaced out woman, earbuds in and 

back turned to the wallet sitting on the roof of her still running car. Petty crime, then. Thrilling.

He sourly ambles over to where she’s parked in front of the store, lifting his arm like it’s an entire goddamn chore and making a subtle move for the colorful polka dot patterned wallet.

The woman spins on her heel, grabbing his wrist with inhuman speed and strength that is quite possibly the biggest fuck you of the day. It is immediately topped, however, when the creature’s expression takes on a look of wrathful recognition.

Gabriel’s been on the receiving end of such a look an unfortunate number of times and, as is often the case with this occurrence, he has no fucking idea who this lady is. Or what he did, for that matter. It’s a safe assumption that whatever happened wasn’t great, but that knowledge isn’t going to stop the next sequence of events from ending with his corpse being abandoned in the salty snack aisle of a gas station. In  _ Minnesota _ .

He considers bull shitting, but he worries about how convincing his performance could realistically be after flinching like the most pathetic of pussies in response to a mere hand on his. Not good, she answers for him, with a telling lift of her thin brows. 

As her lips begin to distractedly curl upwards at the development of Gabriel’s less than impeccable shape, he spots the only chance he sees himself getting in the immediate future. He yanks his arm back with all of his frighteningly little might and breaks free with only some difficulty. But that’s fine, because the next bit promises to be decidedly easy.

Running is a second, arguably first, nature to him at this point. Which is why he barely experiences any crippling terror at all as the thing leaps onto the hood of the car right as he’s throwing himself into the dingy driver’s seat. There's slightly more of a fear factor as she makes some impressively intense eye contact with him through the windshield. But he makes sure to use that fear constructively by forcefully slamming his foot down on the gas and just fucking  _ flooring it _ with reckless abandon for the safety of anyone and anything aside from himself. It’s no surprise that the front of the store takes somewhat of a toll for this behavior. 

Cola spews and glass shatter as Gabriel drives through the entrance and the several boxes of canned sodas that had been neatly lining the front wall. The woman is propelled face first onto the windshield at the acceleration, cheek squished against the laminated glass and eyes lit with some proper rage. She rears back, blunt teeth grit and bare as she struggles to a standing position and proceeds to thrust a foot through the space her head had previously been laying on.

_ Yikes yikes yikes _ , is the only coherent thought Gabriel can latch onto before he’s breaking with more power than he’d hit the gas with. The force hurls her backwards, where she crashes behind the counter and joins a wide eyed cashier having the most exciting day of his career. The top of her head pokes up from beside the register as he starts reversing like a madman out of the disaster area.

“ _ Loki _ !” She screeches, fury and outrage still wholly audible even as he’s fleeing from the gas station altogether and speeding onto the road.

The name shines some light on their relationship, but not very much. Not that it matters now. He exhales heavily through his nose and smooths his hair back as the Gas-N-Sip gets smaller and smaller in the rear view mirror.

As inconvenient as the meeting had been, he at least got a working radio out of the ordeal. It takes only a satisfyingly simple press of a button to get generic pop station number nine going. But even Mariah’s iconic vocals aren’t enough of a win for him to ignore the fact that his hands would be literally shaking if he wasn’t holding onto the steering wheel. Over  _ that _ . Whatever iota of charm this disgustingly close to  _ human  _ state held has officially expired and he is more than ready to swiftly finish this fun little adventure. No more side tracking.

His fingers find the knob controlling the station and begin twisting, in search of some tunes that won’t inspire within him any unneeded feelings of teenage rebellion. He soon finds something that fits the Serious mindset he’s elevating himself to; Classical. Elegant. Focused.

Two loud bangs interrupt the start of a promising violin heavy overture, the first being the unmistakable sound of a gunshot, and the second being one of his back tires bursting. 

The first instinct he has is to turn up the volume of the music and just let his hubcap drag for at least a little while, but the following two shots make it clear that action is necessary since it's not just his recently acquired Sedan the bitch is trying to take out. A quick look in the side mirror confirms that the minivan is in the midst of its second grand theft of the day and the gas station lady is more determined than he’d given her credit for. He has exactly three seconds of planning time, which consists of little more than expletives and self pity, before a bullet whizzes close enough by his neck to burn and he’s losing control of the vehicle in an embarrassing panic.

“Whoa,” He breathes out, stupidly, as he registers how close that brick building is getting  and then watches in distant shock as the hood of his car crumples like that weak ass Corvette- A faceful of airbag joined by oodles of ear ringing promptly snatching away even more of his awareness and presence in this situation.

That life saving flight or flight response must get him out of the car and rubble at some point after that, because when he starts to zone back in he’s on the sidewalk in the middle of a pathetically tiny, abandoned strip mall. Heat Of The Moment is getting steadily louder behind him, an extremely specific indication of his upcoming demise that he honestly never expected. Still moving on autopilot, he scans the few shops lining the street and dashes to the nearest door, quickly coming back to himself as Asia grows more foreboding than it has any right to be.

The door is mercifully unlocked, a cheerful little bell chiming above his head as he nearly falls into the store that turns out to be not quite as abandoned as he’d believed. Behind several rows of tall, neatly organized bookshelves, there’s an even taller man, not even having to crane his neck to spot Gabriel over the top of the dust covered wood.

There’s a few seconds of silence where they exchange equally startled looks, one arguably more appropriate than the other considering this guy is presumably running a business. Tires squealing to a stop and the music reaching its peak volume brings Gabriel completely out of his daze, moving him to break eye contact and quickly scan the nearest bookshelf for the largest motherfucker he can get his hands on.

“ _ Hey _ ,” The guy calls out as Gabriel makes a b-line for the front entrance with a meaty book held in two white knuckled hands, “That’s-!” He cuts himself off, eyebrows pinching as Gabriel presses his back against the wall next to the door and gets in the proper position to take a bitch out. “What is happening right now?”

“I,” Gabriel isn’t quite at a paint the walls with his own blood degree of unhinged, nonetheless the mania his tone exudes is definitely palpable, “am not going to fucking die to  _ this thing _ .”

This calls the man to action for some unbeknownst reason, moving him to head out from behind the books and join Gabriel on the other side of the door frame. He reaches up with a flannel adorned, freakishly long arm to feel around on the shelf the bell’s dangling from, and when he pulls away it’s to reveal a goddamn machete of all things now held in his proportionately freakish big hand.

Gabriel spends a short while blinking at this development, but runs out of time to process as miss spurned gas station woman comes barreling in through the entrance. He and the now somewhat suspicious character act at the same moment, with varying levels of effectiveness.

The queen of hearts takes the thing’s head clean off with only a single, professionally aimed swipe. Gabriel, with his marginally inferior weapon of choice, hits the severed limb with the skill of a major league champion, sending it sailing through the air and plopping wetly out onto the main road in an objectively grotesque and possibly unnecessary display.

It’s all rather anticlimactic, making Gabriel’s frenzied theatrics come off as just that, theatrical. Luckily, that’s always been a good color on him and he can’t currently find it within himself to care about what this decapitation happy librarian thinks of him. Although he’s not so much of an ass that he doesn’t know that thanks are an order before he ditches him with the body.

He reaches a hand up to give the behemoth’s shoulder a few sincere pats, “Noice.” And he’s on his merry way. 

Not without protest, of course. “Where- You can’t just  _ leave _ ,” The guy trips over himself in his haste to follow Gabriel out the door, “Who was this?  _ What _ was it- And who are you?!” 

And just when he’s thought he’s caught a break by stumbling across a no nonsense, no questions serial killer, “Who are  _ you _ ?” Which is perhaps the laziest deflection Gabriel’s ever used in his life, but he physically cannot spare a single bit of energy more on this fucking fiasco. No matter how bouncy the hair.

“Sam,” He answers, with a wholesome simplicity that instantly has the corners of Gabriel’s mouth twitching upwards.

“Well,  _ Sam _ ,” Gabriel grabs onto the top of the minivan door, berserkly left open by someone now entirely irrelevant, “I don’t really have the time to get into the nitty gritty of that whole,” He glances involuntarily over to that irrelevant head of light hair splayed over black cement, “situation.”

He figures that sounds slightly better than,  _ your guess is as good as mine, _ but it turns out to be an equally frustrating response.

Sam’s face scrunches up fractionally, but as he opens his mouth to speak, Gabriel is closing himself off into the van. Their eyes reconnect through the side window, tension building steadily between them before Gabriel raises a single twirling finger and pointedly locks the door.

Something in Sam’s stance changes, straightens and tenses, to clue Gabriel in on the fact that this interaction doesn’t end without answers being given. And then, before the idea of worrying can even cross his mind, it’s gone. Large shoulders slouch, the firm line of Sam’s mouth drops and suddenly the only thing his body language is giving off is raw exhaustion. 

A whole ass mood, really. Trying to talk at all over the blaring Asia would’ve been futile. Gabriel sniffs and turns his attention to the innards of the car. And immediately gets kicked in the dick with some  _ potent _ self loathing.

The book, the inciting incident of this train wreck of a day, is sitting stupidly in the passenger seat, buried under crumpled hostess wrappers and a few useless, discarded stereo knobs. Exactly where Gabriel had completely forgotten about it. Son of a bitch.

As if that inexcusable lapse of good sense isn’t painful enough, his reeling brain is now connecting a few embarrassingly obvious dots at the sight of the thing. Book. Book _ store _ . His intelligence is truly unparalleled.

With a skyward toss of his eyes and a very irritated grab at what, in the wrong hands, could and would be the key to his undoing, he crawls back out of the van. After viciously tearing up the connecting wires providing the maddening one note soundtrack to his powerless rage, of course.

Sam is walking towards the front door, with an arm outstretched and an unpleasant fistful of blonde hair.

Gabriel grimaces at the scene, but (after quickly evaluating his priorities) pushes past his queasiness and marches over to him with surly steps, “Hey!  _ You _ !”

Sam turns, a move that has the unfortunate effect of two sets of eyes landing on Gabriel. He represses a shudder, thoroughly unhappy with his inability to snap away the gross factor of this interaction.

“What now?” Two words have never been spoken with more unnecessary  _ sass- _

“This!” Gabriel, tries to match that peak level of attitude, but once again comes off as more crazed than anything as he grandly flourishes the huge book. 

The face Sam pulls at the action is justified considering the damage Gabriel’s recently done with a nearly identical object, but dramatic as hell given the context that the man himself is casually holding a severed head, “Is that-?”

“Yeah!” Gabriel huffs, arriving at what’s intended to be an intimidating inch away from the man’s chest. It ends up being more intimidating for him, but that’s easy enough to ignore as he realizes that, in all likelihood, this big ol’ fucking oaf actually can’t know what it is, “ _ No _ .”

Sam snatches the book out of his hands like an absolute  _ fiend, _ rushing to drop the head and wildly inspect the cover and weathered pages with cartoonish movements that are unexpected enough for Gabriel to forget to be outraged. Momentarily. 

He yanks it back, aiming a glare at the audacious prick, only to find an equally withering look being thrown his way.

“This was stolen,” Sam, blatantly accusatory, informs him with a pointed raise of his eyebrows.

“Yes it was,” Gabriel sneers in agreeance, his tone making the implication of the sentence perfectly clear.

Visibly offended, Sam throws his shoulders back and narrows his eyes even further, “I bought it. Just like I’ve bought every single other book on display.”

“I’m sure,” Gabriel simpers condescendingly, already pretty bored of the stand off. He uses the second of immobilizing white hot fury the cadence elicits in the man to brush past him and enter the store, stepping over any obstacles that may be tastelessly blocking the doorway.

“What are you doing?” Sam hisses out, following way too close behind, and raising a red flag that instantly has Gabriel defensive.

He spins, backing up a few wide steps and lifting a warning finger at the guy, who has not yet been ruled out as a homicidal maniac, “Don’t worry about it, book boy.”

Sam looks to be irrationally hurt by the lamest insult to leave Gabriel’s lips in lifetimes, “Well, I am worried about it. You’re  _ trespassing _ -”

Gabriel can only really bring himself to snort in response to that; Of all the crimes committed in this Chili’s tonight, that transgression doesn’t even come close to noteworthy.

“-and I’m not exactly comfortable having a thief digging around-”

The front door slams shut hard enough to shake the hinges. And to hit the poor girl’s head like a fucking golf ball, sending it rolling out onto the sidewalk and holy shit is Gabriel going to have to spend some time playing hopscotch with the saddest of orphans to feel right about himself after all of this corpse desecration- Whatever.

The potent thrum of power that charges the room for that one second is both enough to shut Sam up and to nearly completely knock Gabriel out. Beyond all reason, he manages to stay standing.

“That’s the least of your worries,” Which is the best line of the night. Cool, only slightly slurred, and effective enough to keep Sam at a semi-safe distance.

For now, at least. That machete is  _ not _ far. 


End file.
